India-Japan security ties not targeted at Papua New Guinea

Why PNG?

Unnamed Indian officials in Tokyo sought to drive home the point that India was not going to allow its ties with Tokyo to affect its relations with Port Moresby. Indeed, in a press conference at the residence of Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso on Wednesday evening, Dr Singh sought to emphasise that India’s economic relations and security cooperation with Japan would not be “at the cost of any third country, least of all Papua New Guinea.” [With due respect to Siddharth Varadarajan]

Then why mention PNG, you ask? Well, then why mention the PRC? It is not as if the good people in Beijing will be convinced by mere words. As TOIreports, “the fact that India has showed up in China after concluding a security and defence agreement with Japan will have its impact here.” Indian officials may well say Vienna is behind them, but looking ahead, China is reinvigorating its efforts to prevent India from securing a seat on the UN Security Council.

There was no need to mention China. Doing so evokes mental images of the need to kowtow. Surely, the Prime Minister of India does not need to do that?

What matters on the ground, and what is taken seriously in P5 capitals is capabilities, not verbose intentions.

And there, MMS has done his job – by making possible a nuke deal with America, by unveiling the ATV project, by keeping funding and focus intact on big-time DRDO projects like the Agni3 and the Anti-missile program, by accelerating infrastructure buildup in Arunachal, by reigniting critical fwd bases like Daulat Beg Oldi and redeploying Sukhois to Awantipur. Etc.

Don’t gemme wrong. Am no MMS fan. Will not shirk from blasting away his failures as PM. But won’t grudge him his accomplishments in the PM kursi either.

@Sud: It doesn’t take the authority and power of a PM to do most of those things.
If they’d just let the professionals do their job, except the nuke deal, all of your other points are elements that should’ve been done in any case, had the experts been allowed to do the right. If a PM uses such achievements in his favour, he’s clearly only picking the lowest
hanging fruits.

Ideally, he’d be thinking of and acting on larger and longer-term issues like “..the balance of power in Asia, and the stability of the subcontinent..”.

The thing I dont like about our government is, that there is hardly any communication from the high offices of PMO and the cabinet on such visionary and forward-looking issues, and especially so, once these guys get into the government. I really liked the way Vajpayee took the time to write those articles as a PM. “Musings from Kumarakom” or some such series.

“keeping funding and focus intact on big-time DRDO projects like the Agni3 and the Anti-missile program, by accelerating infrastructure buildup in Arunachal, by reigniting critical fwd bases like Daulat Beg Oldi and redeploying Sukhois to Awantipur. Etc.”

Almost all of these he had to brought in kicking and screaming. Agni and anti-missile got put off year after year. Only after China said – are you guys so stupid? – that he, with a major push from military and strategy wonks, allowed for anything to happen in North east (and don’t forget the brand new road connecting Leh with cities in Himachal ). It’s surely not proactive. Only thing saving his legacy is he didn’t block these undertakings like Nehru did for a long time…

Search across INI

MMS is a habitual kowtow-er and needs *someone* to kowtow to, be it sonia madadme, terrorists, rahul, Bush, the chinese or someone else.

Sud

All this kowtowing business is mere words.

What matters on the ground, and what is taken seriously in P5 capitals is capabilities, not verbose intentions.

And there, MMS has done his job – by making possible a nuke deal with America, by unveiling the ATV project, by keeping funding and focus intact on big-time DRDO projects like the Agni3 and the Anti-missile program, by accelerating infrastructure buildup in Arunachal, by reigniting critical fwd bases like Daulat Beg Oldi and redeploying Sukhois to Awantipur. Etc.

Don’t gemme wrong. Am no MMS fan. Will not shirk from blasting away his failures as PM. But won’t grudge him his accomplishments in the PM kursi either.

Nitin

Sud,

Fair enough. What do you think of the balance of power in Asia, and the stability of the subcontinent?

NotReallyAnonymous

@Sud: It doesn’t take the authority and power of a PM to do most of those things.
If they’d just let the professionals do their job, except the nuke deal, all of your other points are elements that should’ve been done in any case, had the experts been allowed to do the right. If a PM uses such achievements in his favour, he’s clearly only picking the lowest
hanging fruits.

Ideally, he’d be thinking of and acting on larger and longer-term issues like “..the balance of power in Asia, and the stability of the subcontinent..”.

The thing I dont like about our government is, that there is hardly any communication from the high offices of PMO and the cabinet on such visionary and forward-looking issues, and especially so, once these guys get into the government. I really liked the way Vajpayee took the time to write those articles as a PM. “Musings from Kumarakom” or some such series.

“keeping funding and focus intact on big-time DRDO projects like the Agni3 and the Anti-missile program, by accelerating infrastructure buildup in Arunachal, by reigniting critical fwd bases like Daulat Beg Oldi and redeploying Sukhois to Awantipur. Etc.”

Almost all of these he had to brought in kicking and screaming. Agni and anti-missile got put off year after year. Only after China said – are you guys so stupid? – that he, with a major push from military and strategy wonks, allowed for anything to happen in North east (and don’t forget the brand new road connecting Leh with cities in Himachal ). It’s surely not proactive. Only thing saving his legacy is he didn’t block these undertakings like Nehru did for a long time…